Male elves do not have a single good face option. Half-elves have more “elvish” looking male face options than do elves.
I also think the ranking is somewhat class dependent. Half drow beats drow for sorcerer or wizard due to having light armor and shield proficiencies as well as most of the other drow abilities.
Light armor and shield are overrated. The game has a bunch of "gain +1 AC when not wielding armor or a shield" items in the game, many of them actual wizard/sorc gear. My Gale is sitting at 22AC, can go up to 23 AC with the ring that lets Shadowheart cast Warding Bond on him, and on top he gains universal resistances except psychic with it. Mage armor requires not using armor or shields.
And if you really want to go up in armor, you'll equip the Helldusk armor from Raphael which is a heavy armor that gives proficiency and will make him sit at like 25-26 AC anyways. Not that you need an AC that high even in tactician.
Meanwhile pure drow gives you much more dialogue options than half-drow, which is pretty tangible.
True, but those items do all take up slots that could be used for something else. There’s lots of combinations, so having the option to use light armour or shields is quite significant IMO even if you find unarmoured items at various points in game.
Late game armour is amazing when you get to late game, but no use at all for most of the game.
That's fair, but since most of the game is 90% martial gear, it's not like casters have that many great options in ACT1/2 either, the options were basically use the lightning sparks gear for a +1 on attack rolls and 5-7 extra lightning damage on 5 stacks, or get an extra 3AC from being unarmored. That's a no-brainer for me, AC is really strong and since magic missiles is the best spell in the game and doesn't rely on attack rolls, AC was the obvious choice. In the case I needed cleaving spells, the normal cleave spells are pretty mediocre until you get to lv3+ slot spells, which work off DC saves anyways and by then the lightning charge gear isn't that great compared to having your wizard sit in 21-22 AC instead of 18-19.
I do want to try Wyll's rapier next playthrough, since I was annoyed to find out you can't get it from Mizora unless Wyll is in the party for the Mindflayer colony section, and I've always preferred Gale to Wyll because I find warlocks to be pretty gimped and by far the worst caster of the Sorc/Wiz/Warlock with their spell level capped at lv12 on lv5 spells while the others get lv6 spells, warlock has no access to chain lightning, and are stuck with a pitiful 3 lv5 warlock spell slots. I'll basically have to gimp myself during Mindflayer company to have Wyll in party to obtain that otherwise really nice Rapier.
